Beatrice Frankie Fowler Brooks Gaddy, often called Bea Gaddy or
simply
“Miss Bea,” was born on February 20, 1933, in Wake Forest, North
Carolina
to Novella Davis Young and Mottie Fowler, Sr.1
Gaddy had two natural brothers, one older and one younger, as well as
several
half siblings from her mother’s second marriage.2

Gaddy’s childhood, like that of many Americans who grew up during
the
Depression, was difficult and forced her to face the harsh realities of
poverty at an early age. Her stepfather was a particularly
abusive
and violent man, and contributed to the economic struggle of the family
by his excessive drinking. Encounters with her drunken stepfather
often left Gaddy and her older brother hungry and scavenging for food
in
the garbage bins behind the town’s grocery stores. Gaddy recalled
in a 1989 profile written about her in the Baltimore Sunday Sun
Magazine
that:

Many days, we didn’t eat because, when
my mother didn’t work and couldn’t bring home leftover food, there was
nothing to eat. And even when there was food, if my stepfather
had
been drinking, he’d come home and throw our plates out in the back yard
or through the window.3

Gaddy’s stepfather terrorized the family to the extent that her younger
brother was sent to live with an aunt. Gaddy and her older
brother,
however, were not so lucky and spent much of their childhoods living in
fear of the man who abused them as well as their mother.4
In speaking about her childhood, Gaddy noted that:

Many nights me and my older brother
were
gotten out of bed and he’d just run us all over that little town.
He would tell us that we were not his children. And that’s when
we
learned how to eat behind the stores. We were scared to go home
so
we would eat from the bins.5

The difficulties of the Depression coupled with her dysfunctional
family
life kept Gaddy from enjoying many aspects of her childhood,
particularly
holidays. She once spoke of a Christmas when she “woke up and
there
was nothing. Nothing at all. No tree, no presents, not even
any food.”6

Eventually Gaddy attempted to escape her family by marrying her
first
husband, a man who was described as “good but without means or dreams."7
In Bea’s own words, she got married to “leave home. I got married
just to have a place. And that turned out to be ten times worse.”8
Gaddy followed her drifter-husband to New York City, where they lived
off
welfare and moved every month because the family could not make rent
payments.
Tragically, Gaddy’s husband was murdered by an acquaintance, leaving
her
to fend for herself and support their children.9

Her years in New York as a struggling mother with several
children
were especially difficult for Gaddy. Money was always a problem
and
on one occasion, Gaddy simply walked away from an apartment because she
knew the sheriff was coming to evict her. She recalled that, “it
was easier to walk away. I can say it now. ‘Cause I’ve
started
over many times. It just hurts so much to see that sheriff come
and
take all your stuff and set it outside in the streets. So
humiliating.”10

By her mid-twenties, Gaddy had been married twice and was living
alone
with her five children. Struggling as a single mother desperate
to
support her family and with no real connections in New York, Gaddy
looked
up an old friend from North Carolina, Elvis Lee Allen, who was then
living
in Baltimore, .11 With his help,
she relocated her family to the city in 1964, though poverty and
hardship
seemed to follow.12 One winter
was
particularly difficult as financial stress forced the family to live
without
heat or electricity and yet remarkably, it was this winter that marked
a turning point in Gaddy’s life:

I had a lot of time that winter to sit
down and think about what being poor and hungry does to a person
inside.
I never wanted anybody to know I was in such bad shape because you
think
being poor and hungry is all your fault…Then I just started asking
people
to help me. And that helped me help myself.13

In trying to feed her children, Gaddy held a series of jobs in
Baltimore,
one of which brought her into contact with another individual whose
help
greatly impacted the course of her life. While working as a
crossing
guard for the Baltimore City Police Department, Gaddy often visited the
office of Bernard Potts, a local attorney and businessman, to warm up
in
the cold weather. Potts saw potential in Gaddy and urged her to
complete
her high school education, which she did through a correspondence
course.14
Potts further encouraged Gaddy to pursue a college degree program, so
she
enrolled in mental health classes at Catonsville Community
College.
Pott’s interest and consideration for Gaddy paid off, and in 1977 the
still-single
mother of five earned a Bachelor of Arts in Human Services from Antioch
University.15 Gaddy so
appreciated
Potts’ influence in her life that she once described him as “the
grandfather,
I never had.”16

Beginning in the 1980s, Gaddy started using the pain and
disappointment
of her earlier years, coupled with successes of her years in Baltimore,
to channel her energy into helping those around her. Still
extremely
poor herself, Gaddy’s earliest work focused on simply feeding her
neighbors
as well as her own family. Amazed at the simplicity of asking
store
owners for leftover food, Gaddy realized that she had the ability to
gather
what she needed to feed her children and neighbors merely by asking for
it. Using a garbage can, Gaddy began soliciting food from local
vendors
with such success that she thought to herself “Ain’t nothing going to
stop
me now.”17

Bea Gaddy’s earliest relief work started rather unexpectedly when
she
used fifty cents she had found to buy a lottery ticket – a ticket that
ended up winning her $290. Gaddy used this money to feed 39 of
her
neighbors, which effectively marked the beginning of her emergency
relief
work in Baltimore.18

In many ways Gaddy’s earlier struggles with homelessness and hunger
drove her work in Baltimore, as she sought to battle her own past by
reaching
out to those in need around her:

You know, we talk about
homelessness.
Well, I was really only homeless one night in my life, but in another
way
I’ve been homeless all my life until I came to Baltimore. And
everything
I do for people today is what I’ve always wanted people to do for
me.
To feed me, to care for me, give me warmth, to show me where I was
wrong
and put me on the right path.19

Bea Gaddy understood firsthand the hardships, humiliation and feelings
of self-worthlessness that accompanied poverty, hunger and
homelessness,
thus she was able to reach the needy of her community in a unique and
direct
way. This directness often characterized Gaddy’s work as she used
a hands-on, grassroots approach to fulfilling the needs of her
neighbors.

One of Gaddy’s biggest relief concerns was hunger, and as she had
often
remarked that “hunger was my constant childhood companion” this is
hardly
surprising.20 As a result, on
October
1, 1981, Gaddy opened her soon-famous Patterson Park Emergency Food
Center.21
Though it started off small and was driven by Gaddy’s solicitation of
local
food vendors with her wheeled-trashcan, the Center is now run as a
non-profit
corporation. True to its humble beginnings, the Center relies on
the work of volunteers and the donations of local companies as well as
private individuals. On any given day Gaddy’s center feeds
between
50-150 people, and since she began keeping records in 1981, Gaddy
estimated
that she had served more than 100,000 families.22

While her Emergency Food Center perhaps did more to help the poor of
Baltimore than any of her other efforts, Gaddy is best remembered for
her
annual free Thanksgiving dinners. Like her other work, the
Thanksgiving
Dinner relies on donations and volunteers and was at one point carried
out at her home. The popularity of the event, however,
necessitated
a larger location and the dinner was moved to Dunbar Middle School.

Since its inception, the crowd at the annual event grew steadily to
nearly 20,000 and requires a massive amount of donation and
organization. The
Washington Post reported in 2001 that the meal consisted of 80
tons
of food, 30,000 paper plates, 50 cases of aluminum foil, 2,000 pumpkin
pies and 100 cases of sweet potatoes. According to The
Post, the 2001 dinner relied on 3,500 volunteers who fed 20,000
people.23

In addition to her daily work at the Emergency Food Center and her
yearly
dinners, Gaddy also became involved in running a furniture bank,
renovating
and refurbishing abandoned row homes, running summer youth programs and
speaking out on the necessity of voter education. Shortly before
her death, Gaddy also became an ordained minister so that she could
marry
and bury the poor at no cost to them. Gaddy’s East Baltimore row
house became the center of all of these various operations and worked
under
the name of the “Bea Gaddy Center for Women and Children.”24

The extensive reach of Gaddy’s volunteer activities required massive
amounts of planning and organization, and yet the grassroots nature of
her work often made accurate record-keeping nearly impossible. In
1994, Gaddy faced criticism from The
Baltimore Sun pertaining to her allegedly poor record-keeping
practices,
and yet in the face of such censure, Gaddy managed to maintain a
positive
attitude and retorted that “You’re going to be criticized. They
criticized
God and they finally killed him” adding “Not that I’m worth his
toenails.”25

As if managing so many different outreach operations was not enough,
Gaddy became involved in local politics, winning a place on the
Baltimore
City Council in 1999. Sworn in on December 9, 1999, Gaddy
“pledged
to bring a citizen’s voice back to the council” and planned on using
her
familiarity with Baltimore’s poor to her advantage.26
Gaddy won a seat on the Council from the Second District, winning by a
clear margin.27 Prior to her
election, The
Baltimore Sun, who had so harshly criticized Gaddy several years
before, heartily endorsed her with:

Democratic primary winner Bea Gaddy,
who’s
work with the homeless and hungry is synonymous with civic commitment
in
Baltimore, also deserves election. Ms. Gaddy has displayed far
more
compassion for her constituents than virtually any incumbent council
member.”28

In 2001, Gaddy’s potential on the City Council was largely unrealized
as
her term was cut short by her death in October of that year.
Those
involved in Baltimore politics spoke very highly of her. Mayor
Martin O’Malley commented that, “She’s closer to the very poor than
anyone else. She can be instrumental in finding a better way to
provide
homeless services."29

Gaddy’s presence undoubtedly did much to lift the spirits of the
poor
in her district as well as throughout the city. In a 2001 article
in Baltimore Magazine,
reporter
Jim Brochin noted that in walking the streets of Baltimore, Gaddy was
“greeted
like a conquering hero” by her constituents and that “the people of the
Second District now feel as if they have someone fighting for them on
the
inside."30 Joan Floyd, who
worked
with Gaddy on her various relief efforts and was the founding director
of the Remington Neighborhood Alliance commented that Gaddy was
“encouraging
us to empower ourselves as a neighborhood” and that “We got the sense
that
as we improved the neighborhood, she would be right there with
us.
Her presence is a real plus.”31

For her extensive work, Gaddy received countless awards throughout
her
life, including the Unsung Hero Award (1972), Afro American Woman of
the
Year (1984), Baltimore’s Best (1984), National Council of Negro Women
Humanitarian
Award (1988), Mayor’s Citation (1988) as well as the Baltimore City
Council
Award (1987, 1989). Gaddy was also honored as the 695th point of
light by former President George Bush as part of his “1,000 Points of
Light”
campaign.32 In 1991, Family
Circle magazine recognized her in the article “Women Who Made a
Difference” and in 1992 she was named “Marylander of the Year” by The
Baltimore Sun.33
Posthumously,
the Maryland Commission for Women inducted her into the Maryland
Women’s Hall of Fame in 2006.

Bea Gaddy’s tireless work caused her to sacrifice many things, one
of
which was her health. Despite the fact that she felt a lump
growing
in her breast, Gaddy refused to seek medical attention or acknowledge
that
she was ill. First diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998, Gaddy’s
cancer went into remission, only to return fatally in 2001. On
October
3, 2001, Bea Gaddy passed away at the age of 68, leaving her children
and
friends to carry on her work. As a testament to her lasting
power,
Gaddy’s daughters, Sandra Briggs and Cynthia Campbell have successfully
managed to coordinate the annual Thanksgiving dinner, as well as
working
on many of her other outreach projects. In 2003, two years after
Gaddy’s death, her supporters still managed to feed more than 17,000
people
at Thanksgiving.34

Bea Gaddy attained almost legendary status in and around the
Baltimore
region throughout her lifetime, inspiring countless others to engage in
outreach programs in their own neighborhoods. Jamie Ridgley, a
young
girl from Manchester in rural Carroll County, was just one young person
inspired by the activist. After hearing about Gaddy, Ridgley
decided
to found “Helping Hands” and used a small wagon to collect canned foods
from her neighbors. Bea Gaddy soon heard about the young girl and
met her outside of a supermarket to help collect food and inspire yet
more
people to get involved.35

The tall tale of “Balldemer Bea” is yet another example of her
mythic-like
role within the Baltimore community. Third graders in Harford
County
created the character of “Balldemer Bea,” giving her larger-than-life
characteristics
of the real woman and reflecting the extent to which Bea Gaddy’s
charitable
work was respected throughout the greater community. The school
children
claimed that:

On the day she was born, she baked her
own birthday cake…She could bake a 2,000 layer cake in four
seconds.
She was such a good cook that whenever people smelled her cooking,
there
were lines, miles long, at her door.36

The third graders at Roye-Williams Elementary school also claimed that
“Balldemer Bea” read 200 cookbooks a day and caught 1 million crabs
from
the Chesapeake Bay that she used to make free crab sandwiches for the
homeless.
While obviously these stories were influenced by a healthy dose of
childhood
imagination, they nevertheless reflect elements of truth and in many
ways
mirror the celebrated status that Gaddy enjoyed from the appreciative
adult
community in Baltimore.37

Despite Gaddy’s untimely death, her message of caring for the
less-fortunate
and her legacy of selfless giving have endured. In 2002, the
first
“Annual Bea Gaddy Day” was celebrated on the anniversary of her death
and
marked a city-wide food drive to promote poverty and hunger awareness
in
Baltimore.38 On June 6, 2002,
the
Bea Gaddy Cancer Education and Prevention Center opened and has since
worked
to provide free cancer screenings and health education to Baltimore
residents.39
Gaddy’s work earned her the popular titles “Mother Teresa of Baltimore”
and “St. Bea” – titles undoubtedly deserved due not only to the work
she
did throughout her lifetime, but also to the work continuing in her
name.

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